Trail of Bits fickling up to 0.1.12 Import Safety Analysis fickle.py _process_import deserialization

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability labeled as critical has been found in Trail of Bits fickling up to 0.1.12. Affected by this vulnerability is the function _process_import of the file fickle.py of the component Import Safety Analysis. Executing a manipulation can lead to deserialization. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2026-16760. The attack may be performed from remote. There is no available exploit. A patch should be applied to remediate this issue.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as critical was found in Trail of Bits fickling up to 0.1.12. This vulnerability affects the function _process_import of the file fickle.py of the component Import Safety Analysis. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a deserialization vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-502. The product deserializes untrusted data without sufficiently verifying that the resulting data will be valid. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In Trail of Bits fickling through 0.1.12, the _process_import() method in fickle.py adds an imported name to the likely_safe_imports set whenever the source module is present in sys.stdlib_module_names and the name is absent from the UNSAFE_IMPORTS denylist, without inspecting what the name resolves to or how it behaves. The OvertlyBadEvals analysis pass in analysis.py then unconditionally skips any call whose function name appears in likely_safe_imports, including calls that would otherwise be flagged as overtly dangerous. As a result, any callable reachable through a non-blocked standard library module inherits module-level trust regardless of its own behavior, and check_safety() returns LIKELY_SAFE with zero findings for pickle payloads that reach code execution or file write through such callables. Demonstrated primitives: dataclasses._create_fn, which passes an attacker-controlled function body to exec() and yields arbitrary code execution on Python 3.7 through 3.12 (the internal _create_fn function was removed in Python 3.13); mailcap.findmatch, which internally calls os.system() on a test command taken from an attacker-controlled caps dictionary, yielding arbitrary code execution on Python versions through 3.12 (the mailcap module was removed in Python 3.13); and readline.add_history() followed by readline.write_history_file(), which writes attacker-controlled content to an arbitrary filesystem path (POSIX platforms, where the readline module is available). fickling.load() chains check_safety() into pickle.loads() as an explicit security gate, so a LIKELY_SAFE verdict causes the payload to be deserialized and executed with the privileges of the victim process. The root cause is the inference of callable safety from module origin; it is independent of, and separately fixable from, the dotted __qualname__ resolution weakness tracked as CVE-2026-118938, which this advisory does not address. As of 2026-10-30 the three demonstrated modules were added to UNSAFE_IMPORTS on the vendor master branch (commit d011709) pending release; released versions through 0.1.12 remain affected, and the module-origin trust root cause persists, as demonstrated by the related CVE-2026-118938 remaining exploitable on that same build.

The advisory is available at bombadil.systems. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-16760 since 07/23/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is required for a successful exploitation. Successful exploitation requires user interaction by the victim. Technical details are known, but there is no available exploit.

Applying the patch d011709 is able to eliminate this problem.

If you want to get best quality of vulnerability data, you may have to visit VulDB.

Productinfo

Vendor

• Trail of Bits

Name

• fickling

Version

• 0.1.0
• 0.1.1
• 0.1.2
• 0.1.3
• 0.1.4
• 0.1.5
• 0.1.6
• 0.1.7
• 0.1.8
• 0.1.9
• 0.1.10
• 0.1.11
• 0.1.12

CPE 2.3info

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CPE 2.2info

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